Paid links that are passing link equity from a blog?
-
We have a well-known blogger in our industry with whom we've had a long-standing relationship. We've had inbound links from his blog for many, many years. Today I noticed that we are running a banner ad listed on all pages of his blog under a heading that says "Sponsors."
He has dedicated an entire page of his site giving full disclosure of all advertising. However, all of the links on his site pointing to us are passing link equity. To my knowledge they've been this way ever since they were first established years ago.
I am fairly certain this fellow, with whom we have an excellent relationship, neither knows nor cares what a "nofollow" attribute is. I am afraid that if I contact him with a request that he add "nofollow" attributes to all of our links that it will damage our relationship by creating friction. To someone who knows nothing and cares nothing about SEO, asking them to put a "nofollow" on a link could either seem like a technical request they don't know how to handle, or something even potentially "shady" on our part.
My question is this: Considering how long these links have been there, is this even worth worrying about? Should I just forget about it and move on to bigger fish, or, is this a potentially serious enough violation of Google Webmaster guidelines that we should pursue getting those links "nofollow" attributes added?
I should add that we haven't received any "unnatural" link notifications from Google, ever, and haven't ever engaged in any questionable link-building tactics.
-
Anthony, thanks so much for chiming in. My gut instinct is to agree with you. I think I'm going to sit on this one and think about it for a little bit. It will also give me some time to formulate the best approach if I do decide to ask him to change the links to "nofollow."
-
I really like this Idea. I think diplomatically approaching it is key. We do have one person at our company who is good friends with this particular blogger. I need to use him as my emissary, but it will be a hard sell. Within the first month of me coming on board here he introduced himself to me this way: "Hi, my name is xxxxxx and I don't give a crap about SEO."...so I will have an uphill battle there, LOL. Ah well, 50% of SEO is diplomacy isn't it?
Thanks for responding. I appreciate it very much.
-
Dana, I have been through this situation and it was very easy for me to make then no follow the paid links that are pointing back to my client’s website.
Obviously Paid Links are against the Google terms and you know you cannot take that easy so you have to go with adding no follow attribute.
When I was facing this issue, I tried to setup a physical meeting (may be a dinner and a coffee) and then slowly tell him how Google is reacting these days and how business should take care of small details that ideally they shouldn’t. Plot the problem and let him know the solution… If he is not technical enough just offer him your technical services for free and if he/she is really in a good connection with you, he probably will say yes to it (keep your services free)!
And you are done!
-
I would have to agree with SEO 5 team and get them changed, why take the risks of a ticking time bomb that could hit you at any time and without knowing your actually site potential destroy your listing.
I would go about the call slightly differently I would go about it in the sense of how by not doing this google could penalise his site and destroy his rankings and visibility. He is more likely to help and change his site, if he thinks he has got something to lose, which technically he has.
So explain to him, that Google are penalise site which take paid links and put "nofollow" on them.
It might hurt your rankings in the short term - but at least your then not worried about every update Google does.
If your playing by the rules, then you will actually come to enjoy Google updates as your competition suffers and you improve.
-
Hi Dana,
While technically a paid link and against TOS... I wouldn't recommend changing it or worrying about it. And I'm a pretty conservative SEO. Every backlink profile has some bad links. Old bookmarking sites, comments on random sites, scraper sites, whatever the cause may be. If this link has been there for years without problem, don't worry about changing it.
Now, if you had 10-50 similar paid links, I would recommend actively changing them to nofollow as it would look like you were trying to be manipulative to the rankings and would be a good preventative measure.
-
Hi Dana,
In our opinion that would technically be treated like a paid link and is in violation of Google guidelines. Link below:
Link Schemes (especially the part that says "Widely distributed links in the footers or templates of various sites")
Better to be safe than sorry:). Our suggestion in this case would be to set up call with the blogger (a more personal discussion) as opposed to an email and then get your views across to him. I'm sure he will appreciate your proactive approach in doing this before you get into any issues with Google. Also the fact that you do have a reputation to protect with your clients and in the industry, so why put that in jeopardy.
Cheers,
SEO5..
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Blog.domain or domain.com/blog
My client can't do domain.com/blog because he's on wix. I'm thinking blog.domain.com. Do you have any resources for the pros and cons of this? I understand that google looks at them very similarly now, is that true for google +?
Technical SEO | | tylerfraser0 -
How much domain authority is passed on through a link from a page with low authority?
Hello, Let's say that there is a link to site A from site B. The domain authority of site B is 85, but the link is on a page that has a page authority of only 1. Does much authority get passed along from site B to site A? (Let's assume site A has a domain authority of 35, if that's relevant.) Thank you!
Technical SEO | | nyc-seo0 -
Can hosting blog posts with keyword anchor text on outbound links cause a penalty?
My site received a Google penalty for having inbound links from blog posts with over-optimized ("spammy") anchor text. I spent months getting these links removed. Yesterday - I received a link deletion request from a site that my site had linked out to (three links via keyword anchor text relevant to their company) in a blog post. The "unnatural link" penalty still hasn't been removed from my site. My question is: Does the penalty work both ways? For having inbound "unnatural" links ... AND for having outbound "unnatural" links?
Technical SEO | | RedNovaLabs910 -
Links from Instructables.com?
This is a silly newbie question. But will posting on www.instructables.com with some valuable content and url link back to my site help with "linking"? Or do they put a no-follow on all links on their site? Thanks for answering! Ron
Technical SEO | | yatesandcojewelers0 -
Thousands of external links
My site has supposedly over 4,000 external links from it. Is there a good piece of software that could scrape my site that tell me from which page all the links originate from and where they're all going? I'm surprised that the number is this high because our entire site is only a few hundred pages. Here's the site XXXkidecalsXXX.com (just remove the XXX for the URL.) If you want to weigh in on any other issues you see with the site, I'd be happy for any suggestions in general.
Technical SEO | | Santaur0 -
Broken LInks Tool?
Hi I am trying to find broken links on my site, Is there a tool for this? Free or Paid tool is fine thanks.
Technical SEO | | daracreative0 -
Link Share Matrix
Our developers have requested our "Link Share Matrix" - does anyone know what a Link Share Matrix is? Google and the Wiki haven't provided any decent results so I still don't know exactly what it is. Thanks in advance 🙂
Technical SEO | | Seaward-Group0 -
What should i do with the links for "Login", "Register", "My Trolley" links on every page.
My website ommrudraksha has 3 links on every page. 1. Login 2. Register 3. My trolley My doubt is i do not want to give any weightage to these links. does these links will be calculated when page links are calculated ? Should i remove these as links and place these as buttons ? ( with look a like of link visually ? )
Technical SEO | | Ommrudraksha0